lab_web

Statement

Hi, I'm Lara. I am London based artist, educator and FLOSS advocate.

Like Changaco, my first goal is to receive around €500 per month. My second goal is to cross the €1000 threshold in order to get close to the minimum wage in the UK (or some other EU country) and be free to pursue FLOSS advocacy, educational projects and creative work using only Free software culture and practice.

Art

Since mid 90s my work reflected hybrid interests ranging from creative use of the Internet to intersections of video art and architecture. This led me to explore boundaries of emerging technologies while studying Hypermedia MA in London in early 00s and actively participate in the field of Media arts worldwide for over 20 years.

Teaching

Teaching philosophy driving my educational activities is founded on Free/Libre/Open Source philosophy and culture aiming to enable students develop a deep, systematic and critical understanding of the historical, political, technical, social, legal and cultural contexts where art and technology intersect in order to apply these in contemporary art and design practice. The ability to apply this understanding, to creatively conceptualise, build, test and develop new tools and systems on a sustainable basis as well as practical skills and core competencies of contemporary art practice including developing and modifying open software and hardware tools, using collaborative methods, appropriating and manipulating tools and content and being able to adapt to a changing technological, social and media environment are at the core of the teaching/learning aims and objectives in my work.

I am currently developing Libre Graphics summer school course for youth.

FLOSS

In the past I have contributed to organisation of FLOSSIE, an annual conference focused on women and open source, lead voluntary organisation for Libre Graphics Meeting 2016 in London, volunteered/volunteering for global organisation of Libre Graphics Meeting (libregraphicsmeeting.org) in both Toronto (2015) and next year in Seville and I am one of the custodians of Floss Manuals (http://www.flossmanuals.org/ and https://en.flossmanuals.net/) an amazing community project for Free Software manuals.